DATA TYPES

Version

Date

STRUCTURE

Required Elements

In its simplest form, the only required elements are a version, a date and the noted changes. Blank lines between the Version line and the first Change line are optional. Blank lines between Change lines are also optional.

<Version>(whitespace)<Date>
(whitespace)<Change>

Change lines have no specific format. Commonly, authors will use a dash - followed by a space to start a new change, and indent subsequent lines for multi-line changes. Example

- Simple Change
- This is a very very very long
change line

Preamble

Any amount of text before the first Version line will be considered part of the preamble. Most existing distributions include something along the lines of:

Revision history for perl module My::Module

Groups

Changelog entries may be grouped under headings. Heading lines begin with an opening square bracket ([), and end with a matching square bracket (]). When parsing group headings, leading and trailing whitespace inside the brackets should be discarded.

(whitespace)[Grouping Name]
(whitespace)<Change>

Since empty lines hold no special meaning, all Change lines will fall under the current group until a new group heading is found. Example:

[ First Group ]
- First Change
- Second Change; in first group
[ Second Group ]
- First Change; in second group